John Alleyne is an interdisciplinary artist from the island of Barbados, currently based in New Orleans, Louisiana. His paintings and monotype prints are rooted in an exploration of freedom, connecting his lived experience with an intuitive process of silkscreen mark-making. Alleyne looks for perfection in the imperfect. The untraditional use of unhinged silkscreens and squeegees are utilized as mark-making tools to create painterly gestures of figurative-abstraction. Within these gestures, Alleyne challenges notions of love, belonging, healing, beauty, manhood, and masculinity.

 

Employing an intuitive process of silkscreen mark-making with ghost print techniques, John Alleyne presents a world of figurative-abstraction that aesthetically transcends the laws of nature, while celebrating Black joy and otherworldly beauty. Other themes addressed in the exhibition include notions of belonging, healing, love, manhood, masculinity, and a desire for visibility. Individuals depicted in these works are identifiable by mere numbers, pointing to the broader subject of Black bodies being commodified, manipulated, and deified.